About This Site

PARIS MANIFESTO (September 22, 2008)

Once a mere cultural resource (2000-2004), this site was, little by little, led to offer a tribune to those brave scientists who dare expose the growing pseudo-science (“1 hookah=200 cigarettes” “sweep-it-under-the-carpet” so-called ““waterpipe””™ “science”) and whose now open objective is PROHIBITION. We consider prohibition of smoking as antithetic to the spirit of world major religions (Taoism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Communism, Judaism, Christianity, etc.), particularly the 2nd and 5th ones. Against this new pseudo-scientific obscurantism, we invite you to RESIST in the field: on campuses, hookah lounges, etc. WE HAVE WON THE BATTLE in France where hookah lounges have stayed open thanks to our friend’s debunking of the great fraud about hookah “passive smoking” [2009 STUDY](which was already a fraud in relation with cigarette smoking...). We are also firmly committed to fight those who shamelessly
promote, in the absence of any evidence and sound study, the pharmacological treatment of supposedly “hookah addicts” (read here).

SUMMER 2013: THE WAR ON PEOPLES AND THE WAR ON HOOKAH (SHISHA, NARGHILE) ARE ONE SOLE THING

”Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear” (Really? James Corbett). "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." (Universal Declaration of Human Rights – UN, 1948).

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Right: The 21st Century American Way of Smoking, Totally
Anti-Totalitarian & Imperatively Peace-pipe loving

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NOTE 2010: Wasim MAZIAK, world Top ««Waterpipe»»™ tobacco expert, and main author of the WHO Reference Report on the issue, WARNS YOU in person about this site:

“hookah promotion and sales, at least in western societies, are done through the internet (Cobb et al., 2010), and at times are concealed under scientific disguise (e.g. the Sacred Narghile site www.sacrednarghile.com/en/index.html)”

Now, in a Tunisian medical journal, this individual (together with Imed HARRABI and other local naive groupies), WARN YOU (in a response to an embarassing debunking critique published by two independent Tunisian researchers) against the ““promotional content”” of this site. The core of their article is based on defamation and a renewed ad hominem attack (a classic among war advocates) against Kamal.

They defend the idea of using human guinea pigs in highly hazardous hookah experiments: 4 successive hookah sessions in an unventilated room (plus water not changed and other picturesque details), which actually represents a blatant violation of the Declaration of Helsinki for the protection of human subjects in medical research. Imed HARRABI and Wasim MAZIAK even cite the Editor in chief of the Food & Chemical Toxicology journal who actually tried to “sweep the scandal under the rug” by defending “his” authors, as he did with another quadruple one. The latter was dealt with the funding of anti-““waterpipe”” research at the US-American University of Beirut by the Tobacco Industry! Read Kamal’s Revelations HERE and confirmation by Dr SIEGEL, professor of public health at Boston University THERE).

Also, they still defend the idea that Tunisia is a part of Eastern Africa and the evidence they cite in support of this is, hold your breath, WIKIPEDIA! Kamal quickly commented on this: “As if this so-called “online encyclopaedia” were a peer-reviewed or even scientifically reliable source of information.. Not only it is definitely not but, with such sensitive issues as hookah smoking, it is entirely monitored and harnessed (its "administrators") by antismoking lobbies defending the interests of the pharmaceutical industry (Globalink, in particular)”. Paradoxically, the same antismoking ideologues now criminalise critical Letters to the Editor published in peer-reviewed scientific journals (sometimes the same as theirs) as if their “official” State, Lyssenkoist, imperialist (let us not be hypocritical and call a spade a spade...) and biased science had to be blindly accepted by the whole world. Our only response is: let they lodge their complaints to the very Editors of the same journals and tell them they are stupid...”

What is apparently targeted is the unbearable presence of the Hookahculture site in our Links section.... Looks like Maziak immediately draws his gun when he hears the word “culture” in relation to hookah smoking, apparently like German totalitarians of World War II (Goebbels)... The Sacred Narghile’s response to this diktat is: “If you’re looking for trouble, you came to the right place!” Come here if you have the guts you ugly ““waterpipe””imitator of health fascists !

Amazingly, we have noticed that the Hookahculture (totally available for numerous years) can’t be accessed anymore... Of course we assume that health fascists have threatened or blackmailed his owner. We’ll leave readers and managers of other similar sites investigate this matter by themselves for we don’t have time for this.

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NOTE 2009: We apologize for the hectic update and the whole mess…humm… We have been fighting hard, you know, and alone against giants [WHO fake reports, National Bans, Neo-McCarthyst Witch-Hunts, Defamation Campaigns, Censorship, Millions of Dollars (1) for Pseudo-scientific and Media Violence, etc, etc... not to mention the Indifferenceand Unawareness of targeted populations]. We sincerely hope that The Sacred Narghile will be restored soon to its original purpose.

1997 - 2007 : The Narghile Decade

Mid-decade edition of The World of Hookahs (2002)

>> 1997 (LEFT) : "Le narguilé". An Anthropology of Narghile (Hookah, Shisha), 262 pages. Black and white. The book that shook the world 10 years ago, by letting hookah smoking go global and become a world epidemic ? Isn't anthropology a dangerous game ?

>> 2007(RIGHT): WORLD PREMIERE. PLAGIARISM in black and white by Bertrand DAUTZENBERG & Jean-Yves NAU ("Tout ce que vous ne savez pas sur la chicha", Paris, Editions MARGAUX-ORANGE). Respectively Chairman OFT (Office Français du Tabagisme) and columnist with Le Monde daily newspaper. Now that Editions MARGAUX-ORANGE have been informed of the extent of the intellectual piracy and had decided to sweep it under the carpet, they should obviously be seen as ACCOMPLICES. >FULL STORY HERE(including link to first comparative table)

“Plagiarism is globally recognised as a serious academic offence” (The Lancet)

NOTE: The book was actually prepared by a crowd of experts. Just to mention a few of them, it is said that the OFT’s team members [free transl.]: particularly Joseph OSMAN, Pascale SOMMERA, Maria OELCHANIDIS and Lalla TRAOREL , have been major actors in the «chicha» (shisha, narghile, hookah) project… (pages VII et VIII). Therefore, it is a COLLECTIVE OFT-led PIRACY.

>FULL STORY HEREabout this great scientific fraud where you will also learn how these "experts" take a Shish-Kebab for a Shisha (page 30-31)... and warn you that "The great risk is that shisha, progressively, take the place of cigarettes" (page 58 of their book. A sentence put in bold characters by the authors themselves)... A "great risk" for whom ?

10 Years Back (1997)...

Although it is a familiar object for a billion people in the world, the four hundred year old hookah (narghile, shisha, "water pipe", "waterpipe"™, "hubble-bubble") seems struck by a strange silence [This article was written in 1997]. Most encyclopaedias overlook it completely, while the mass media seems to be more concerned with problems considered as "serious" and dynamic than by folkloric and inert objects. It is however undeniable that this tool is used daily, for hours on end, by over a hundred million men and women, in Asia, Europe and Africa, at the local coffee shop or at home. By opening its columns to a presentation of this object and this practice that lies at the very heart of Mediterranean conviviality, Rive magazine deserves our gratitude for going back to the true meaning of discovery.

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OUR POLICY OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM

Individuals cited in these columns are generally authors of public documents or statements (e.g.: in scientific journals or national newspapers) for which they are fully ACCOUNTABLE. Some of them are even notorious defamers and plagiarists/counterfeiters.

From the beginning, we have decided that we wanted visitors to know who are the actors involved in the “asymmetric war” (
Public Health David against Anti-Tobacco Goliath ; One against a Thousand) raging behind the open hookah scene. We gave the full names of people who participated, in one way or another, in a defamation campaign at the highest level; of plagiarists/counterfeiters of the scientific work actually defended on this site (because of the ugly censorship); but also of the authors of tremendously partisan and erroneous pseudo-scientific publications that have been fuelling a huge confusion over the past years with the now well known negative impact on Public Health.

When an end is officially put to such a scorched earth policy (driven by censorship, killing equations like “1 Hookah = 200 cigarettes” and the like, etc.)(1), and collaboration, at last, put on the agenda, then names will be removed, not before. Even if the recent blitzkrieg of “new studies” bodes no good news, we remain open and optimistic. Peace on Earth would be possible again (Dec. 7, 2007).

(1) “If they want a One Hundred Years’ War, I will be standing behind the scientific barricades and they may be assured that I will not know Jeanne d’Arc’s fate” (quoted from press release Dec 1, 2007).

[In other words: take care of what you state in public if you wanna not see your name here and mind what you write and publish if you wanna not scientifically perish.
This really is the limit now !]

UK Ban Is Illegal and Should Not Stay. It Is Based on Junk Science, Lies and Hypocrisy. Read Scientific Evidence

The author wonders whether “these “experts”, apparently called in emergency by ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) to help it enforce a ban on “Shisha Lounges” in the United Kingdom”, do not actually “Defend, Instead, a New form of "Imperialism"
(If we May Use a Phraseology Similar to that of These Experts...)
Aiming at Endorsing the Bush Neo-Conservative ““Great” Middle East” “Vision” in the field of Public Health”…

He concludes that “these “experts” are actually 200 times more dangerous than hookahs because they are dangerous for science and, beyond, for public health.” (Apr. 25, 2007)

Important Health Warning!

For centuries now, dozerns of millions of people have been using the narghile (hookah, shisha, "water pipe", "waterpipe"™, "hubble-bubble") in a "recreational" way, that is once, twice or thrice a week, once a month or on occasions. However, it is thought that this method cannot be an alternative to cigarette smoking. If you are a dependent cigarette user thinking of quitting this way, you may be wrong in some cases and all you might succeed in is to become a hookah chain smoker. So, we invite you to take psycho-medical advice. For more information, please refer to the relevant section of this site or get in touch with us through the “Contact Us” page.

and "If necessary -in view of the expected reluctance to commitment by influent involved parties-, the setting up of an International Tribunal (The Hague) to establish charges against those researchers and their affiliated organisations who have imposed, day after day over the past years, a mafia-like system".

READ Related analysis about the geopolitical meaning of the neo-word ““Waterpipe””™, a dangerous nominalism for the world public health, recently advertised again by new "expert" Dr Sebastian THOMAS from Libya:

A critique of “Narguilé : attention, danger!» (accessed June 29, 2007), a story (*)written by Pascal DIETHELM,
a member of the Governing Board of the French CNCT (Comité National Contre le Tabagisme). The Sacred Narghile awarded him the Golden Stupidity Palm for his dangerous following statement:

About This Site

The Sacred Narghile Team: Alex, Juan, Genevieve, Diana and kamal (ex-officio). From the beginning, we have been committed to fight junk science and obscurantism in relation to hookah studies. We have been saying, again and again, that we want sound and independent scientific research where there would be no room for bias, politics, censorship, plagiarism, crusades and witch-hunts. Noteworthy is that the war declared on the "Peace Pipe" was waged in the wake of 11 September 2001 (Read: “An Enemy at Last” by Ignacio Ramonet)

Anyway, controversy and debate are essential for the progress of science. This site was launched 7 years ago as a direct reaction against blatant censorship on the early scientific comprehensive work carried on by K.C. one decade ago. The protagonists were researchers of the American [US] University of Beirut (particularly Monique CHAAYA) who thought it was not necessary (and perhaps dangerous…) to cite this early literature. The same scenario took place again a few years later with the total blackout imposed by the staff of the US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies

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We don’t receive MONEY neither from the Pharmaceutical Industry (wealthy dealers of nicotine in the form of patches and chewing gum) nor from the Tobacco Industry nor from the US and international funding agencies (NIH, RITC, etc.).

We have been working with our brains only. So, time has come now for a severe overall evaluation of the quality of the numerous publications to be found in the market.

We are happy to see now how a new generation of researchers can write studies without citing any of Thomas EISSENBERG, Alan SHIHADEH, Kenneth WARD, Wasim MAZIAK and their blind followers. Censorship is like a boomerang.

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This site is NOT the site of the independent researcher we consult for international and scientific matters. Go to his personal pages if you want to: Personal Page
This site is a collective property. Or, let's put it this way: we are his FAN CLUB. We like him for his open mind and the quality of his work but, first of all, because he has been censored for a long time at the highest level on both academic and professional levels. His writings an critiques (on health aspects for instance) are and will remain unavoidable for any independent researcher. Our bibliography only mentioned his references for a long time simply because, when we started off five years ago, the sole substantial and comprehensive (health aspects as well as social, cultural, historical ones, etc.) work carried on in this field was his. And still it is today to a great extent. Evidence can be found here with the

These researchers deserve our greatest respect. Besides, all of his longstanding efforts have been oriented towards a sound objective scientific transdiciplinary approach of the hookah (narghile) issue, far from fear-arousing and ideology. We share this approach.

From the outset (1995), he has always invited people to join him in this exciting research: for publishing joint papers for instance, setting up an international research centre, an international association, and so on. This invitation is still open to people who still know the meaning of the word “sharing” if they ever experienced it.

Unfortunately, we have seen how some people have taken advantage of the stuff and clues offered for free on this site and even forayed it. Sadly enough, we have seen how, in recent papers, neither the name of our friend nor that of this site were quoted in these “original” articles. A recent exception is a medical study carried on by Knishkowy and Amitai (which however credit our site with wrong statements about “drugs”…). "Anthropology" is "apology" or "folklore" only for those who cannot see the obvious link between health and the socio-cultural setting.

CRIMININALIZING DISSENT IN RESEARCH

Wasim MAZIAK’s call for action openly refers (n°40) to The Sacred Narghile site: “On the other side of the equation, media outlets are emerging with disguised ownership that promote the waterpipe by minimizing the evidence about its negative public health potential [40]”

Although his declaration of own scientific bankruptcy made us sick, we decided to reply although partially:

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>>>> THE ONLY SITE on Earth for the critique of pseudo-science on hookah. And God said: “Go and Multiply Yourselves...”

"Don’t Be Afraid” (Jesus Christ)!

“Don’t Be Afraid” of intellectual and pseudo-scientific terror! Light will overcome the darkness warfare ! (be it from WHO, whoever or whichever supra or superpower). Dare Doubt, Criticize, and Publish your own Analysis !

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Warning to Fanatics (""Anti"-tobacco" pretenders, scientific and/or religious...)(*): What hell do we mean by 'Sacred Narghile', title of this site?

Muslims reject the worship and idolising of images and they could be right, particularly in this world polluted by commercial advertising... (What do the French Anti-Advertising militants (English: HERE) think ?)). Indeed, Islam's highly refined civilisation
(see this or that for a quick overview) has greatly contributed to the development of narghile (hookah, shisha, "water pipe", "waterpipe"™, hubble-bubble) for centuries. Therefore, it must be clear that we use the attributive adjective “sacred” in the figurative NON-RELIGIOUS sense conveying simultaneously the meanings of importance (for the underlying culture) and "mystery". Actually, this is how the vast majority of non-Muslims have always perceived narghile.

Please Note:We neither sell products such as tobacco or pipes nor do we provide with addresses of retailers or wholesalers. Our policy does not allow us to insert links pointing to commercial sites proposing such items. Such sites are identifiable when searching with the same keywords which led the visitors to us.

We stick to sound independent research findings on the use of narghile (hookah, shisha, "waterpipe") in the world. We do not promote the use of tobacco. We hope our kind visitors will understand this position.